Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Second week there...he's getting a workout!

Beck Family!

So my goodness, i have just been having one heck of a
time out here. Your not gonna believe this, but i still dont have my camera, it
is somewhere in the apartment, so i still have to send you all the pics from
the mtc and my first few weeks here. I know, i must be killing you, but i there
are just so many things that i have to do on p day that i pretty much forget to
grab it. today i woke up at 5'30 to get a haircut. My comp cut my hair, he
pretty much just gave me a glorified buzz cut. I look more like i should be in
the army than a missionary, but hey maybe it is a good look. Then at 6 i go to
do my laundry, and since then all i have done is go shopping and clean the
apartment. P day is literally as busy, or more, than every other day of the
week. It is complete anarchy. But i love it all. Last week i had some crazy
things happen. I had to go on exchanges without a spanish speaking companion,
in my area. My comp, Elder Leon, is a district leader, so he has to go and do
excahnges with the other missionaries in the district. So last week, after i
had only been here for 7 days, he left me in charge of my area, and the
companion i got stuck with for 24 hours didnt speak a lick of spanish. He had
been out here for a while, but he somehow didnt know how to say jack squat in
spanish. So for the whole day i was the one contacting people, trying to get
appointments, and proselyte all in spanish. Eventually i some how talked my way
into someones home, and taught the entire first lesson, all in spanish, and
they actually invited us back.

They are just this perfect little family, and if i get my
way they are all gonna be baptized. It was crazy, i didnt know where anything
was, even how to get back to my own apartment, but i was left in charge of the
area. And i got a family worth of new investigators. I dont even know what i
was saying when i was in their home, but apparently it was good enough that
they invited us all back. I also turned a street contact into a blessing.

This random guy we talked to just unloaded on us about
all his problems, so then we asked if he wanted a blessing, and he said yes. So
he took us back to his appartment, and i gave him a blessing. Just crazy things
like that are happening all the time here. I am so consistently tired its
crazy. I ride my bike for hours a day in the california sun, only stopping to
walk entire blocks talking to people on the street. At home at night, i just
kind of collapse into my bed. But somehow i keep functioning. I have a few
things i would like to ask for, if you could send them in a package. If you
could send me my little yellow escape tool, that would be great. All i remember
is it was somewhere in my room, im guessing that stuff has all been moved
anyways. If you could also send me some more stamps, that would be great. There
just isnt enough time to every stop by a post office, so if you dont send em to
me, i wont ever have em. Also, how much does it cost to send a letter to
another country? Like France? A physical hand written letter. I mean, i have
got no real reason to ask this question, you know, i was just curious. Like is
it 3 stamps or what? And if you could send me a California flag that would be
pretty sweet too. I has just been awesome over here, i have been challenging
people to baptism, and we will hopefully have one on conference weekend. My
companion is half ecuadorian and hondurian. Im not sure if that is politically
correct, but close enough. He is a eating champion. He pretty much doesnt eat
the entire day, but then once we get to dinner, he makes up for the entire days
worth of food. I think he can literally unhinge his lower jaw, and flip on a
vaccuum switch behind his ear, and just inhale the food through his gaping
mouth. It is impressive and slightly frightening. But he is a great guy, and he
works hard, and he never stops for anything. We get along good cause of that. I
finally got bike lights today, so now i will be less scared about being hit by
cars. I forgot to get them last week, and we just didnt have time in the whole
week to go get them. My comp just said, "tenemos fe," and we kept on
riding. I got to teach elders quarum on sunday to. Didnt find out about it
until 3 minutes before sacrament started. Obviously, the whole thing was in
spanish. Just one more of those crazy things we have done since I have been
here. It is very nice here, it is 65 degrees the whole day, and it is just
perfect. I have heard that it is about to get very hot though, so that is gonna
ruin this paradise that i have got going on here. It is great to here that
sierra, i knew you wouldnt get anything but 100 percent. Dont ask me how how
knew, but i just had a feeling. My bike is pretty nice, its a nice smooth ride,
and i have gotten going pretty fast on it when i am racing from one appointment
on one side of town to the other. Our area is super big cause as spanish
missionaries we cover the whole stake. But since my comp is the district
leader, we do have a car. And i am the driver cause he cant drive. So when we
drive, i am the one dealing with all of these insane cali drivers. But we like
bike more, so we do that more. I have been eating good authentic mexican food
almost every night. The members here have a calender to feed us so We have been
eating with them for the whole week.

They just know how to do mexican food right. But I am
biking so much that I am still actually losing weight out here. Hopefully by
the end of this transfer I am gonna be all leaned up. I have already lost 9
pounds since that first mtc week. I am just running and biking and doing all
sorts of crazy pushups. I am actually getting in better shape out here, even
with all the incredibly fattening food that i am being fed at night. I guess
when you work this hard you can just eat whatever you want. I cant enough
pronounce half of the food that I am eating, but it all includes beef, is
spicy, is some part of it deep fried, and is delicious. On sunday it was fast
and testimony meeting, and with a little encouragement from my companion, i
went up there and bore my testimony in spanish. My comp makes me do a lot of
things that are a bit outside my comfort zone, but are good for me. Well i hope
this is long enough for ya'll, I think we should just call this the Epistle of
Elder Beck. Being a missionary is awesome. Things are just going great here.
Love ya'll.